The Carnivalesque DefuntoThe Carnivalesque Defunto explores the representations of death and the dead in Brazils collective and literary imagination. The recurring stereotype of Brazil as the land of samba, soccer, and sandy beaches overlooks a more complex cultural heritage in which, since colonial times, a relationship of proximity and reciprocity has been cultivated between the living and the dead. Robert H. Moser details the emergence of a prominent motif in modern